


Healer Kings of Lucis

by trashbinofdestiny



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And various collective glaives, Healer!Ardyn, Healer!Noctis, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-11-30 18:52:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11469588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashbinofdestiny/pseuds/trashbinofdestiny
Summary: At seventeen, Noctis Lucis Caelum, chosen king of light and the only member of the line of Lucis to be born with healing magic since the time of the Accursed, flees into hiding in the lower city. Three years later, on a diplomatic mission, Ardyn Izunia hears a rumor on the streets of Insomnia that there's a healer in town who can cure anything. Even the Scourge.This,hehasto see.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a fill I wrote for the kinkmeme!

A scarlet bird lay still in soft fingers. Its feathers were tacky with blood, and its heart beat so fast, so fast against the young boy's palm. Above them, a bell rang out the noon hour, but the boy with his fine shoes in the upturned earth of the royal garden could only hear that hammering pulse. The bird _wanted_ to live, as much as any small bird could want anything, and the boy could feel death crawling through the creature's veins like a live thing, a storm across the sky.

Death was easy for him to recognize. The prince of Lucis came from a line of kings and queens who have always stood with one foot in the grave.

The bird twitched in his hands. Then there was a burst of light, a rush of warmth, and the bird scratched a long line into the prince's hand as it took to the sky with wings made whole.

He would carry the scar on his palm for the rest of his life. 

*

"If you're looking for the healer, you'll need to head to the eastern slums, not the southern ones," said the man at the coffee shop on Insomnia's Main Street. Ardyn Izunia was _not_ looking for a healer, not really, but anything was better than wandering in search of the man he truly needed. And rumor on the street was that _this_ healer was said to cure everything. Even a plague. Even the Scourge. It had been quite some time since Ardyn had seen a hack healer at work, and he looked forward to turning his considerable frustration onto the man as soon as he damn well found him.

So far, he'd been led in the wrong direction by overly helpful passers-by twice. This so-called healer must have been very convincing indeed.

What Ardyn truly needed was likely long dead in a ditch somewhere, knowing his luck. Noctis Lucis Caelum, the heir to the Lucian throne and the man destined to be the newest Chosen King, had disappeared some three years back, directly under the nose of his noble father. So Ardyn, acting on behalf of the emperor of Niflheim, came to Insomnia on the eve of the poor lad's twentieth birthday to offer the king a deal: Hand over the rights to all lands beyond the wall of Insomnia, and Niflheim would hand over the prince.

The difficulty was, Niflheim didn't _have_ the blasted prince, and Ardyn was nearly certain that the boy had run out into the wilderness and thrown himself to the mercy of a voretooth years ago.

Thus Ardyn was left with too much free time between talks at the Citadel—Which was how he learned of the newest healer who had taken up residence in the city slums.

He'd seen it too many times before: It happened like clockwork. A person would find it in their head to capitalize on the suffering of the poor, claiming to be a long lost descendant of the king or the Oracle. They'd hook up a few special effects—rings that glowed yellow or green, lights that sparked underneath the healing beds—and foot it out of the city before their victims were any the wiser.

Ardyn enjoyed visiting _those_ healers. They always made for the most interesting daemons, given time.

It took him two hours to find this one.

The Healer of Lucis, as he was called, had set up shop in what used to be an alcove for an abandoned underground train system. It was in the center of the Galahd District: A kind word for what was a mishmash of poorly-built apartments that leaned precariously over metal railings and walkways. The place was a small, cramped village of its own, tucked under one of the most prosperous streets in town and heady with the stink of oil and runoff from the city above. Ardyn could smell batter frying nearby, and a group of young women sat on the roof of one of the worn-down apartments and played little folk songs about love and misery and no-good sailors being turned into Garulas. It was not, in Ardyn's estimation, the worst place for a clinic if one wanted to remain undetected.

He found the clinic itself by spotting the line of people hovering by the alcove. Ignoring the stares they gave his clearly well-tailored clothes, Ardyn sidled up to them and hung back at the end of the line.

The healer himself was a small fellow, hardly out of his teens and rather stunted for his age. He had long, dark red hair tied up in a messy bun that crawled down the back of his neck, and he wore a dusky grey shirt with the sleeves tied up at the elbows by a string. His pants were black—A dangerous choice, as wearing that particular shade was supposed to mark one as a servant of the crown.

At present, he was bending over a young boy who lay on a cot covered in sanitary paper. The boy was clearly infected with the Scourge, and Ardyn could feel the call of it stirring the daemons that roiled in his own blood. He was too far gone to save, Ardyn knew. Even the Oracle would have balked at the task.

Pitiable fool.

"This'll sting for a bit," the healer said. The boy nodded, and the red-haired man lifted his hands, took a breath, and...

Ardyn bit his tongue to keep from crying out in alarm. The young man's hands glowed with a warm, golden light that Ardyn hadn't seen in so long that he'd almost lost the memory of it: Magic, true magic, the likes of which had been lost to the line of Lucis since Ardyn had been cast out of the realm as the Accursed. Something in it called to Ardyn, called much like the Scourge had in the boy, and he found himself drawing back from the clinic as though at the heels of an Astral.

"There we go," the man said, and the boy winced and blinked. "Good as new."

He straightened to help the newly healed child off of the cot, and beyond the mess of red hair and the face gone pale and wan with fatigue, Ardyn could see the familiar eyes and sharp cheekbones of the king in the young healer's face. Ardyn almost wanted to laugh.

He'd found the lost prince of Lucis after all. But oh, oh by the Six, he had found so much _more._

*

By the time the line at prince Noctis’—or rather, as the man in front of Ardyn said, _Nox’s_ —clinic went down enough for Ardyn to be the only visitor remaining, the young healer was well and truly exhausted. He sat wearily on a rickety old chair in order to see the last three patients, and had to take longer and longer breaks between each one. Ardyn could almost see the magic shifting within him, weak and drained, a candle’s flicker to the fire that had burned in him only an hour before.

When Ardyn entered the alcove, taking note of the dust that gathered on the threadbare rug underfoot, Noctis was fumbling with the cap of a bottle. Ardyn ducked down to swipe it out of his hands, twisting it open with perhaps _just_ a little too much flair. He couldn’t help it—he’d waited so long to meet this man, had prepared so many speeches and winks and sideways smiles. None of that had prepared him for the reality of who the prince was. A healer. The first in two thousand years… A King of Light, indeed. 

“Oh, thanks,” the man said warily, taking the bottle back from Ardyn. “Sorry, I’d stand, but…”

“That was quite a sight,” Ardyn told him, leaning back against the cot. Noctis gave him a sharp look. “I mean no offense, I assure you. My name is Ardyn, at your service.” He tipped down his hat, and the healer looked, if anything, warier still. 

“If you’re here for a healing,” he said, “it might be a minute. I need to rest up enough to try and fix the fountain in Juniper Park, and I used the last of my ethers an hour ago.”

Ardyn smiled. “I don’t need healing,” he assured him. “I’m a professor. Of history, from Tenebrae. I specialize in old magics, and when I heard there was a miracle worker in the slums of Insomnia, well…”

The prince shifted in his seat. “Am I that well known?” he asked. 

“Oh, hardly.” Ardyn turned on the charm offensive, looking down on the man from beneath half lowered lids. “I keep my ear to the street, so to speak.”

“Well, it can go _back_ to the street,” Noctis said. He got to his feet, stretching out his stiff legs. “I’m not interested in being anyone’s case study, or curiosity, or whatever it is you want. I’m just this.” He gestured to the alcove, to the cot before him. “Thank you. Goodnight.”

Ardyn’s smile only broadened. “An altruistic mage? What a rarity. Did you know,” he said, in a purposely disinterested voice, “that I specialized in the magic of the old Lucian kings?” Nox’s gaze flicked to his. “The old ones, mind, thousands of years ago. It was said that _they_ could heal as well.”

“Really.” The forced disinterest was almost _adorable._

“Mm.” Ardyn pretended to be fascinated by the clasps of his sleeve. “Perhaps a strain of that continued beyond the noble line we see today. Have you given a thought to _your_ lineage?”

“My mother was a commoner,” Noctis said shortly. “She died when I was born.”

“Oh. Oh, dear. I am sorry,” Ardyn said. The prince snorted, not buying the lie in the slightest, and gestured for the walkway beyond the alcove. Ardyn bowed and strode toward it obediently, but stopped just at the entrance and turned. “May I ask… why the fountain?”

The young man was tying back his hair again, following at Ardyn’s heels. “Four of my clients sleep in that park, and I know that fountain’s a popular one, ‘cause the security lights are turned off at night.” When Ardyn raised his brows in a question, he continued, “No one can throw you out for sleeping in the open if they don’t see you. Anyways, the Scourge can take root in water, sometimes, and I want to see if that’s what’s happening.”

He stepped out of the alcove and tugged at a rope, and a metal grille went crashing down to the ground. There was a clatter in one of the houses above, and Noctis stepped back as a window was opened.

“Hell was that, Nox?”

“Closing up for the night!” He shouted. “Goin’ topside for a bit.”

The man half hanging out of the window scowled, looking from the healer to Ardyn. He wore a black undershirt and arm guards, and braids hung in loops about his ear. “You want me to send someone to tail you?”

“Maybe. I think I’ll be okay.”

“Come back alive, kid.” The window slammed, and Noctis waved after it, rather nonsensically.

“You’re a popular one,” Ardyn said. Noctis rolled his eyes. “I must say, just for my own sake: May I come along on this noble venture of yours? You have to know, dear boy, that you are quite possibly the embodiment of a lifetime of research. Can you blame me for having some professional curiosity?”

“Gods, you’ll follow me anyways, won’t you?” Noctis asked, glaring up at him. 

“In one.”

“Fine. Just don’t cause a scene.” He walked off without another word, leaving Ardyn to trot to catch up to him. For a skinny little waif, he had a quick gait, even though he did favor his left leg. Odd, but Ardyn recalled in his own, far distant memory, that it was always a little harder to heal oneself than to heal someone else. A quirk from the gods, perhaps.

As they emerged into the busy street above, Ardyn saw that Noctis kept at his left, away from the main press of people. He was guarded, casting furtive looks down the busier streets, and was quick to take side alleys and hop over fences to avoid well-lit areas. 

“Quite a tour you’re giving me,” Ardyn said, and he huffed. 

After the silence had gone on so long that Ardyn was almost feeling _bored_ again, Noctis glanced back and slowed his pace, drawing even with him. 

“You said you’re a professor from Tenebrae,” he said. Ardyn smiled in confirmation. “What does Tenebrae know about Lucian magic that Insomnia doesn’t?”

“Oh, my dear,” Ardyn said, “I could write a book. In fact, I have.” He teased the boy with bits and pieces of what knowledge Ardyn assumed _could_ have survived the ravages of time. The difference between the Oracle’s cleansing magics and the healing magic of the King was of particular interest to the young man, as was the suggestion that the current line of Lucis had bred such magic out of their blood out of a fear of it making them susceptible to corruption.

They were nearly having an actual conversation when Noctis froze like he was running head-on into the path of a behemoth and grabbed at the front of Ardyn’s jacket.

“Wait.” Ardyn raised his brows as he whirled him around, backing into the dark shadow of a doorway. “Stand over me.”

“That isn’t exactly difficult,” Ardyn said, with a chuckle, but slender hands were crushing the ruff of his collar, and he had to follow or risk taking serious damage to the cloth. Noctis was crowded into his chest, but he seemed entirely unfazed by their proximity. His gaze was set just under Ardyn’s crooked arm, watching the street. Ardyn risked a look back, and saw two men in Crownsguard black walking along the sidewalk opposite, speaking quietly to one another. _Ah. Of course._

The smell of the slum was ground-in to the young man’s skin; A hint of dust and oil, spices that didn’t drift from the restaurants of Insomnia proper, clothes washed with too much starch and too little scent. Ardyn lifted a hand to the man’s brow and tugged free a lock of his unnaturally red hair, rubbing it between finger and thumb. “Your roots are black,” he said, careful to keep his voice quiet. 

The healer lifted Ardyn’s elbow a fraction. “I know, I need to touch them up again. Are the guards gone?”

Ardyn looked behind him. “Just turned the corner. Why, are you a wanted man? Practicing without a license, are we?”

“Something like that,” Noctis said, oblivious to Ardyn’s teasing tone. “Thanks for the cover.”

“Any time, my dear.”

The fountain in question was easy enough to spot: Ardyn could have found it with his eyes closed. It positively oozed with the Scourge, thick enough in some places that even the untrained eye could see a cloudy black mist in the water. In the growing dark of Insomnia’s evening hours, it was harder to spot, but Noctis made a beeline for it, barely noticing the other fountains and pools that dotted the empty park. 

“This certainly looks like the culprit,” Ardyn said, as they stopped before the fountain. “Why on earth anyone would _drink_ from this is beyond me.”

Noctis shrugged. “Homeless kids use the fountains to bathe,” he said. “And it only takes one person to spread the infection.”

The prince knelt on the dirty cobbles next to the fountain, utterly ruining his pants in the process, and tied up his sleeves. “I’m not sure if anything’s gonna happen,” he said, looking at Ardyn sidelong. “It’s kind of hit and miss. Mostly miss.” He took a breath and plunged his hands in the water. 

Ardyn sat on the edge of the fountain and peered down into its murky depths. He could barely see the outline of the healer’s hands, glowing with that familiar light of healing magic, but he could tell that nothing was changing in the water itself. The fountain remained dark, uncleansed, and pulsing with the Scourge.

“Shit,” Noctis hissed, after a few minutes had passed. “Every fucking time.”

“If you don’t mind my asking,” Ardyn said, crossing his legs slowly. “What _exactly_ are you trying to accomplish?”

“I don’t know,” the healer said, pulling his hands out of the water. “Cleanse the Scourge before it infects anyone else? But it isn’t _working._ I can only treat it when it’s in something living.” He scowled. “I’ll have to freeze the fountain, then.”

Ardyn leaned over to tap him on the forehead, and the man gave a frustrated _tch_ sound and rocked back. “Or,” Ardyn told him, “you can _heal_ the fountain. So to speak.”

“Come again.”

“This is all hypothetical,” Ardyn lied, “but did you know that in the old records of Lucis before the rise of the Niflheim nation-state, archivists claimed that the Scourge was an organism? Something of a parasite. If that’s the case, it isn’t in the water, it’s in the bacteria and nasty little creatures that already live in that tepid mess.”

Noctis knelt at his side for a long moment, dripping foul water from his forearms and onto his pants. “Right,” he said. “Right. It _feels_ like a parasite, when I’m healing someone. Like I’m burning it out of them.”

“Leave cleansing to the Oracles,” Ardyn told him. “Think like a _healer.”_

Noctis dipped his hands in the murk once more, and this time, his hands shone like a beacon in the dark. Slowly, little by little, Ardyn felt the pull of the Scourge lessen in the still fountain. The filmy algae on the side of the statue in the center was the first to show the effects of the prince’s second attempt. It blazed with an internal fire, branching out in a filmy white sheen over the damp stone. Then spots began to appear along the walls, in clouds of bacteria in the water itself, and finally, the entire fountain shone outward with such a fierce, blinding light that the entire square was lit up, the sun come down to earth. The shadows in Noctis’ eyes and cheeks were cast in sharp relief, making him look like one of the gaunt, soft-spoken prophets who had walked the earth in Ardyn’s time, proclaiming the rise of Lucis and the fall of the Scourge. Ardyn glanced down at his own hands, and saw that the darkness of Ifrit’s curse was stark and oily under his pale skin. 

When Noctis fell back from the fountain, his arms were spotted with light. Water on his skin sloughed off to pool on the cobbles, and his pupils were pinpricks in a haze of blue. Ardyn caught him as he toppled to the side, but the man was too busy blinking the light from his eyes to see the sickness that crawled under the Accursed’s flesh.

“If you didn’t want to attract the Crownsguard,” Ardyn told him, “you picked an unusual way to do it.”

“Oh, you’re funny,” Noctis said. He staggered to his feet, and Ardyn rose to steady him. “Thanks. You… It looks like those archivists of yours might’ve been right.”

“And people say that the study of history has no use in the real world,” Ardyn said with a smile. There was a clang of a bell in the distance, and the man in his arms winced. 

“City guard,” Noctis said. “I can’t see worth a damn… there should be a disc to the sewers near here, one of the ones with the royal crest on it.”

“Yes, I expect there _could_ be,” Ardyn said slowly. “Though why you’d want to know…“

“Just point it out to me.”

Ardyn sighed deeply and scanned the park pathways around them. “There,” he said, lifting his arm from behind Noctis’ head to point. “But may I say, I _sincerely_ hope you don’t intend to—“

“Thanks.” Noctis rolled up his sleeves further and ran to the disc, sliding it out of place with a booted foot. He blinked in Ardyn’s direction and gestured to the gaping black maw of the pit into which it led. “Do you…”

“I believe I’ll take my chances out here,” Ardyn said, tugging at his immaculate cuffs. The young man shrugged and swung himself onto a mold-encrusted ladder. 

“See you around, _Professor,_ ” he called, and dragged the disc back over his head as he descended, with far too much ease than should have been comfortable, into the sewers.


	2. Chapter 2

The first time Prince Noctis healed a human being, he had just turned seventeen, and Gladiolus Amicitia's face was drenched in blood. 

It was Noct's fault. He hasn't backed up fast enough when the drunk lunged towards him, failed to see the bottle arc down in a trembling fist. Years of being dragged through fighting lessons had only instilled in Noctis a fierce desire never to use those skills against another, and that reluctance bore fruit in Gladio's flesh slit open, the taste of fear on his tongue. His Shield dragged Noctis away, blinking the blood from his eyes, but Noctis could already sense the decay creeping its way under Gladio's skin. He wouldn't make it back to the Citadel without losing the eye. 

Noctis placed his fingers over his friend's left temple, and Gladio cursed. 

"The hell do you think you're—"

A pulse of light. A rush of warmth in Noct's fingers. He could feel the eye beneath his hand repairing itself, scar tissue forming over a wound scoured clean. 

Gladio touched the raised scar along his cheek and stared down at Noctis in mingled awe and horror.

"Noct..."

Noctis blanched. He remembered uneasy talks with his father, tentative questions brought up over dinner: _Dad, do the kings of Lucis know how to heal?_

_That power is lost to us,_ his father had said. _Healing magic has always been an ill omen in our line. The last time it manifested, we were plunged into a dark age. Which is a shame. The world could sorely use more healers._

But Noctis wasn't being raised to heal. He was to be the chosen king, the hand behind the sword that was to slay the monster that was the Scourge made manifest. The line of Lucis had no place for a healer. Only death could bring back light to the world: What Noctis had was an aberration. It would never be allowed. 

Noctis stepped back from his friend, slowly lowered his bloodstained hand, and fled.

*

One benefit to living on his own was that Noct could set his own hours—A fact that had not gone unnoticed by his neighbors in the underground Galahd District. It was well known by now that if you wanted to see the Healer, you did yourself no favors by arriving before noon. 

This gave Noct enough time to drag himself out of bed in the small room he rented from Crowe Altius, stare at his groggy face in their shared bathroom, and go over the events of the night before. 

First, there was the professor. Noct wasn't sure about that one. His interest in Noct bordered just this side of creepy, and he definitely didn't _look_ like he came from Tenebrae. Still, he'd helped Noct hide from the guards, and what he said at the fountain...

Noct wondered what else the man knew about this magic. For so long, Noct had played everything by ear, learning his limits through trial and error. If it turned out there were records of it, maybe even a guide to how it had been used in the past, he could do more than just push blindly through feeling and intuition.

"Hey! Your Highness! Ruler of the porcelain throne!" Crowe rapped on the bathroom door. "Scoot! I have duty in an hour."

Noct groaned and sloshed water over his face. "I still smell like the sewer, Crowe."

"Whose fault is that, buttercup? Use Libertus' shower. Nyx should be done with his beauty routine by now." The door opened with a chorus of creaks and squeals, revealing Crowe already dressed in her Kingsglaive uniform. "Again. Scoot."

Noct made a face at her as he passed, and she patted his cheek companionably. As the bathroom sink sputtered to life, Noct crawled out of the living room window and climbed up a rope ladder to the roof. 

By the time Noct was clean, dressed, and feeling half human again, there was already a line of people waiting at his clinic. He mumbled his hellos as they shifted and clamored for attention, explaining their maladies in a cacophonous chorus.

"Uh huh," he said, as he slowly reeled up the grille over the entrance. "Got it. Gimme a minute."

He dug through the donation box as the line formed a more orderly queue. Flowers again—Oh, Astrals, why did people keep sending him flowers? Was the clinic not clean enough? He _tried_ to make it homey, but he'd never been one for interior decor, and he supposed his clients knew it. Still, this was getting excessive. 

There was also a bag of potatoes, a set of clean clothes that might fit, and... A book?

Noct pulled out the massive tome, squinting down at the cursive font on the cover. A Complete Atlas Of Human Anatomy. He flipped open the front cover, and saw that a stack of neatly written notes had been jammed inside. On the front, in elegant script, was a message:

_My dear,_

_Consider this a thank you gift for the truly illuminating tour of the city you gave me last night. The book is yours. I have found multiple sources that all claim that a rudimentary knowledge of the human body can make the healing process more efficient. That means less strain on you, my darling fellow, and speedier recoveries for your beloved patients. I have taken the liberty of jotting down some notes that may be of use to you as well._

_Purely hypothetical, of course!_

_Yours sincerely,_

_Professor_

"Gods, even his handwriting's pretentious," Noct muttered. 

But he kept the book, all the same.

*

“I see you’ve been utilizing my notes.”

Noct looked up from the curry he was attempting to inhale just in time to see Ardyn saunter over to his worktable. The man had waited three days before checking in on him, which surprised Noct a little—He’d seemed so interested in his abilities before, back at the fountain. He supposed it had something to do with the sewer incident. No one wanted to hang out with a guy who walked home through tunnels full of sludge, especially someone like Ardyn, whose clothes always looked spotless. Just when he’d resigned himself to the thought that Ardyn wouldn’t return, there he was, standing at the entrance to the alcove, watching Noct heal the last of his afternoon patients.

Now, the professor sifted through the papers Noct had splayed out on the tabletop, which were covered in the healer’s own unruly scribbles. Normally, Noct wasn’t a fan of letting anyone near the table, but since Ardyn had written the notes in the first place, he supposed he had a right.

“What’s this?” Ardyn said, squinting at a page. “ _Left hand only?_ ”

“Oh, yeah,” Noct said, through a mouthful of rice. “That trick you wrote about cupping magic in one hand and threading it through a wound in the other? Only works if the magic is in your left hand.”

Ardyn’s brow furrowed. “Ah, yes. I’d forgotten.”

Noct set down his bowl at the edge of the alcove—Neighborhood kids were paid to run down the walkways to return bowls and cups to food vendors, and the next runner was due soon. He closed the metal gate to the alcove and dropped a curtain down behind it, leaving him and Ardyn in relative privacy.

“Trapping me, are we?” Ardyn asked. Noct rolled his eyes. 

“I figured you weren’t just here to watch me work,” he said. “Tea?” He unearthed a paper box and shook it slightly. Ardyn pulled a horrified face.

“If it’s that _instant_ mess, I’d rather not.”

“Should’ve known you were a snob.” Noct retrieved a bag for himself. “So why _are_ you here?”

It turned out that Ardyn had brought yet another book for Noct, this one full of details on the effects of the Scourge on the nervous system. Noct was taken aback by that—He knew there were scientific studies on the Scourge, but books and journals on the subject were supposedly kept under lock and key. He flipped through the book slowly while the kettle boiled.

“You know,” he said, “reading that anatomy book helped. It’s like… if I know what it is I’m treating, what it looks like… it doesn’t take up as much magic.” Ardyn pushed a chair behind Noct, and he sat absently, still skimming. “How do you know so much?”

“All part of my life’s work,” Ardyn said, with a smile. He placed a hand on Noct’s, and Noct found to his surprise that he didn’t want to move away.

*

Over the course of the next few weeks, a curious change swept through the Citadel. Chancellor Ardyn Izunia, the man meant to sit in on talks between Niflheim and Lucis in the Emperor’s stead, was rumored to have quietly risen from his seat one day, slipped out the door, and disappeared for the remainder of the afternoon. And the next. And the next, until it became clear to both the king of Lucis and the remaining ambassadors of the Empire that the chancellor had vanished. A search party was formed, guards briefed and deployed through the city, but all signs pointed to the possibility that the man had simply… left Insomnia.

The talks, understandably, fell through. Lost without the chancellor’s guidance, the rest of the envoy hemmed and hawed their way through allowing Lucis to take back the occupied province of Galahd. The press began to whisper of an end to the war, and talk of chaos in the ranks of the Niflheim army trickled down into the street gossip of Insomnia.

None of this bothered Noctis too terribly. He spent most of his afternoons healing his neighbors as always, though his clients did note that there seemed to be a companion with him, most days, sitting in the corner of the alcove. Sometimes, the man could be seen speaking softly into the healer’s ear, or reading aloud from a book on medicine. Now and then, he would pass him ethers and elixirs, or press the back of a hand to the young man’s brow and smile. 

Those who saw the man at the alcove could never agree on what he looked like. It was as though their memory of him faded the further they were from the clinic, until the man’s presence was little more than an itch at the back of their minds. 

“Hey, Professor,” Noct said one night, as he and Ardyn were sitting on Noctis’ couch, drinking tea that _wasn’t_ stored in a bag. 

“Oh, dear,” Ardyn murmured. “You only call me _that_ when I’m in trouble.” They were on opposite sides of the couch itself, their legs tangled companionably in the middle. Ardyn’s knees knocked into the healer’s lightly, a friendly tap. 

“Not this time,” Noct said. “Mostly. But… what _are_ we, Ardyn?”

Ardyn raised his eyebrows. “Well, my dear boy, you are what we would call a _human,_ or homo-sapien, part of the—“

“No lie, I will pour tea down your pants if you continue that, Professor.”

“How much you love me,” Ardyn crooned, and Noct frowned. The younger man set down his cup of tea and sat on his knees, leaning between Ardyn’s legs. He saw with some amusement that for once, Ardyn looked almost alarmed.

“That’s the thing,” he said. “You’re always calling me dear and dove and _ocean of eternal fucking bliss_ or whatever,”

“Not my exact words—“ Noct placed a hand over his lips. 

“And we… It’s been nice. I have friends in the Glaives, people I know here, but you’re the only guy I can talk to who seems to know what it’s like.” He sighed. “Sorry, I’m probably fucking this up.”

Ardyn gently lifted his hand away, and Noct suppressed a shiver at the touch. “I believe I understand your meaning, dear one.”

“See? There you go again,” Noct said. “But do you _mean_ it, or are you just being a—a weird fucking creep who—“

Ardyn tightened his grip on Noct’s wrist and yanked it back. Noct fell over the older man’s chest, and large hands moved to his waist while Ardyn pressed warm lips to Noct’s own. Noct didn’t hesitate—He dug his fingers into Ardyn’s mauve hair and kissed back, open-mouthed and a little sloppy but earnest. He savored the taste of him before he broke free and started kissing down the side of his neck, and grinned at the sound of pleasant surprise that Ardyn made in response.

“Easy,” Ardyn said, petting the back of Noct’s hair. “You don’t want to bite.”

“Do I?” Noct asked, emboldened by Ardyn’s shortened breath. He found a spot just on the side of Ardyn’s neck and bit down. Just a nip, to see what Ardyn would do.

Ardyn hissed and clutched Noct’s shoulders to push him away, but Noct could already taste something in Ardyn’s skin, something strange and bitter and foul. He placed a hand on the older man’s neck and probed with his magic, sending feelers out into Ardyn’s bloodstream.

Ardyn pushed him heavily to the floor, and Noct had to warp in order to avoid the worktable. He rolled on the dusty rug, wincing at the impact of his shoulder on stone, and craned his neck to look up at Ardyn. The professor was scrambling to his feet, looking more undignified than Noct had ever seen him, but it was too late.

“Ardyn,” he said, in a voice that cracked and broke. “You have the _Scourge._ ”


	3. Chapter 3

The healer of Lucis lay on the floor of his clinic, the skin of his knuckles cracking as he pushed himself to his knees. His long, dark red hair fell from its messy bun and pooled about his shoulders, and his lips were parted in breathless shock.

"How..." He fumbled for the edge of his worktable. "How are you still _alive?"_

It was like watching a door close behind Ardyn's eyes. The man's expression went blank, and he straightened, in the line of his shoulders and the shift of his feet going as formal as the members of King Regis’ Council. Yet now that Noct knew what to look for, he could _feel_ the Scourge in Ardyn's flesh, thick and heavy in his veins, his sinew, in the very cells of his skin. It pushed outward, and for a terrifying moment Noct felt it seeking _him,_ like a creature from the dark questing for prey. He held tight to the tabletop, not quite daring to rise. 

"Such a shame," Ardyn said, and his voice took on that sing-song tone he'd used when he first met Noctis months ago: Impersonal, mocking, and faintly cold. Noct levered himself to his feet and took a step forward.

"Ardyn," he said, pressing down panic with every word. "We don't have much time. Please." He called magic to his palms, letting it pool in his fingers, and the glow it cast made the blood behind Ardyn's skin go shadowy and grey. 

"Time," Ardyn said, backing away from Noct's approach, "is the one thing I have always been guaranteed." He tipped his hat to Noct, and the smile he gave him was wolfish and grim. "Your highness."

Noct tensed.

Then there was a great suctioning of air, a _crack_ loud enough to rattle the metal grille at the entrance of the alcove, and Ardyn was gone.

Voices called out overhead, muffled and faint.

Noct stayed where he was, rocking slightly on his feet, hands bright with his healing magic. The sudden absence of the Scourge that burned through Ardyn left Noct reeling and unsettled, like someone who just ran a marathon only to find himself thrown into the open air. His breath sounded too loud and grating in his ears, louder even than the clack of the grille being opened and the rustle of curtains being drawn aside. Then there were hands on his shoulders, a voice in his ear, and Noct dropped to his knees and retched onto his only nice rug.

"Shit, Noct. Nox, sorry." He knew that voice. Nyx, a member of the Kingsglaive and owner of the only clean shower on the block. Noct leaned into the warmth of the older man's hand on his forehead, and let the magic sink back into his skin. 

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm sorry."

"Hey, don't talk like that," Nyx said. "What happened, kid? You never get sick. Bad for business and all."

"It's Ardyn," Noct said. "Did you see—" He looked up. "How did he..." 

"There's no one here but you," Nyx said. "Hey, Lib, we might need a code green on this one!"

Noct shook his head, struggling to stand. He knew what code green meant: Ignis, Noct's former advisor and current interfering, all-seeing guardian, had a rule that if Noct got in over his head, he or Gladio were to be contacted immediately. It always led to awkwardness, reminders of a duty long abandoned but not forgotten, the weight of a crown that still pressed upon his brow like a phantom pain.

"Don't bother," he told Nyx. "I know what I need to do. Just. There might be a situation."

Nyx frowned. "I don't like the sound of that. What kind of situation?"

"The Scourge." Noct pushed out of the Glaive's hold and tottered for the exit. "When he dies, if his body is exposed..." He closed his eyes. He didn't want to think of Ardyn dead, slowly disappearing in the way of Scourge victims in Insomnia, his bones shifting and changing even as they melted into the street under the city's reinforced daemon lights. "There might be an epidemic."

The silence that followed this was leaden indeed.

"Fuck code green," Nyx said. "This needs to go to the King."

"Not yet," Noct told him. "I can stop it. I just need to _find_ him. But if I can't... I'll find him anyways. We'll need to set up a quarantine, raid stores for ethers so I can start healing the infected." He lifted the grille at the entrance and looked back. "Can you make sure the Glaives are ready, just in case?"

Nyx inclined his head. Noct hoped this meant that he wouldn't go running to his father, but at this point, he wasn't so sure that involving the king was such a bad idea. Noct already felt overwhelmed, his chest tight with fear, stomach rocking as he moved.

He couldn't dwell on how or why Ardyn managed to disappear on the spot: Did he have magic? A pre-made spell flask? But Noct would have seen the fragments, and only the line of Lucis or the Oracle possessed magic.

He remembered something Ardyn had said, in the beginning. He'd spoken of the line of Lucis, the possibility that the line had branched off, carrying that healing magic with it...

And Ardyn had called Noct _highness._

Noct placed a hand on the wall outside his alcove and took a breath. He wasn't sure if this would work: It had done its job when he tried it in the fountain. He just had to think of this as... a bigger fountain. A _much_ bigger one.

"Right," he said, and called his magic forth once again.

It spread out from his fingertips, a great, invisible aura, searching for spots of sickness and disease. He found it: A whooping cough a few blocks down. A rash, a cold, the constant ache of chronic pain. Not the Scourge, not yet. 

He pushed farther. Bits of the Scourge appeared in his awareness, seeds of it blooming in unknowing hosts, but none of them strong as what moved in Ardyn. He took a few shaking steps, trying to drag his magic with him, and fell into the side of the wall as he felt the faintest sinking hooks of Ardyn's corrupted flesh.

_He could sense my magic,_ he thought, and rapidly drew the pool of his awareness back into his hands. It left him dizzy for a minute, and he had to rest his forehead against the wall, but when he finally pushed away, he knew.

He knew where Ardyn had gone.

*

Ardyn was familiar with the bitter sting of his own mistakes. He could still feel the ache of the first: Lying in a cold sweat in his rooms at the palace, hand gripped hard round the icy fingers of Shiva, begging for an ending. 

_Please,_ He'd wept, speaking through the inhuman snarls of the daemons threatening to consume him. _I've done all you asked of me. Please, gods, let me rest._

And Shiva had looked upon him with her white, clear eyes, and said nothing.

Then, wretched and broken with the pain of being denied even the hope of death, Ardyn had run to his closest friend, his brother, the man who had watched him heal over the years with an awe that verged on hunger, and found him seated on the throne.

He should never have listened to the gods in the first place. He should have done what Noctis tried to do—run off, duty be damned, and let the world fall to the Scourge if it so wanted. It was what the Astrals deserved. 

And so Ardyn had taken an interest in this second fallen son of Lucis, the man with the delicate touch and a bashful inelegance hidden beneath a mask of surly indifference. It had been so long since he'd felt the effects of uncorrupted healing magic that it almost quelled the daemons that lay within his blood. He could think clearly in the light of Noctis' magic, could draw back, back through the endless years to the man who had once bowed to the Astrals and thought himself blessed.

Again, it had been a mistake. Noctis' power was growing too strong: He should have seen it coming. The Scourge in his veins was too potent to remain undetected, and Noctis, for all his strengths, had too soft a heart.

The trunk of Ardyn's car held little more than a travel bag—Ardyn was not one who ever found himself wanting, when he could pinch the fabric of time and bend susceptible minds to his will. He locked the trunk securely and made his way to the front of the car. It would be easy to convince the Emperor that he was still loyal to the Empire (such as it was—a weak, trembling echo of the glory that had been the world before the Scourge). Their plans to overthrow Insomnia could go forward, and Ardyn would find a way to push the errant prince towards his duty as the chosen king. Noctis would become the sword that gave Ardyn what the Astrals had denied him, and Ardyn would not think of the warmth of his touch, or his self-deprecating wit, the careless way he drained his magic time after time for a pittance.

He would not make the same mistake again.

Beside him, the passenger's side door creaked open.

"Ardyn."

*

Noctis clung to the door frame of Ardyn's hideous car, trying to hold in the nausea that had rocked him ever since he came within two blocks of the man. 

_If he is a man,_ he thought. He turned to Ardyn, who was gripping the steering wheel as though it were liable to fly loose, and tried to pull in his magical awareness.

"You can't," Ardyn growled. Noct winced as the car wheeled down a dirt road. "It's too late, dear prince. You unplugged the dam of your magic, now you live with the consequences."

"How do you..." Noct groaned and doubled over. Talking was not an option right now.

He wasn't sure how much longer he'd be alive to talk.

Noct had barely managed to get a word in to Ardyn before the man had, almost instinctively, slammed a foot on the gas and threw Noctis back into the leather seat. Noct had to close the car door on the road, and was dismayed to find that as they approached the unused exit from the city, Ardyn showed no sign of stopping. 

"The wall," Noct shouted, to the silent, grim-faced madman at the wheel. "We'll hit the wall!"

Except... They hadn't. When Ardyn's car swerved through the gates, the wall _opened_ for them, an empty space spreading out like fire on parchment, and they emerged into an oppressive heat and a cloud of dust that Noct was still scraping from his eyes. 

Finally, after what felt like an hour of breathless, terrifying rattling, Ardyn brought the car to a sudden, screeching halt.

"Get out," he said, turning to Noctis.

Noct quavered against the door. "Wh-what?"

"Get out." Noctis curled his fingers around the edge of the seat, and Ardyn made a noise somewhere between a tch and a growl. "You want to be a selfless hero, your highness?" Ardyn's voice was thick with disgust. "Then start walking. The Disc of Cauthess is twenty miles north of here: I'm sure your ancestors' dear friend the Archaean will have _plenty_ to tell. And when a dualhorn or an Iron Giant, or gods, even a hunter, takes the last breath from your body on the way, you'll know where useless sentimentality gets you."

"I just want to..." Noct held onto the door with one hand, the seat with another, as though Ardyn were about to eject him bodily from the nightmare car. "You're sick, Ardyn. You're going to throw me into the desert because I don't want you to die? And how the hell do you know I'm the—"

"Please," Ardyn said. "It was hardly a secret."

Noct had to admit to _that_ point, at least. 

Ardyn set the car to park and turned off the ignition. "Noctis," he said. "Dear, foolish Noctis. You and I have two _vastly_ different goals in mind."

"Whatever. Just let me try." Noct released the door and leaned forward. Ardyn grimaced and pulled away. "You don't think I can do it?"

"My dove," Ardyn said, with none of the fondness he'd infused in the words only hours before. "I know you can't."

"Then let me find out for myself," Noct said. He crawled across the seat, almost into Ardyn's lap. "If I fuck up, you can leave me here. Just..." He placed a hand on Ardyn's cheek, cupping his face in his palm. "Let me—"

Ardyn bared his teeth in a pained grin, and the hollows of his eyes grew dark with the viscous ooze of the Scourge. It crawled down his cheeks, dripping between Noctis' fingers, staining his nails black.

"Very well," Ardyn said, and Noct felt a cold hand at his neck, pressing painfully down on his throat. "You are certainly welcome to try."


	4. Chapter 4

Sweat dripped down Noctis' face, falling onto the Scourge-stained cheeks of the man beneath him. Ardyn lay back in his seat and breathed hard through his nose. His eyes were squinted shut against what harsh sunlight slipped around Noct's slender form, and the pain of the attempted healing poured like fire through his skin. The ooze of the astral plague ran with salt, with tears, with the hot breath of the chosen prince. Noct's hands were thick with the stuff, and his fingers slipped as he tried to gain purchase on Ardyn's skin.

With his luck, the poor man would find himself infected, and then the Astrals truly _would_ be lost, wouldn't they? Ardyn almost longed for it. Two failed chosen ones in a row? What on Eos would those dear gods do, then?

"It's ok," Noct whispered. His left knee buckled, and he landed heavily on Ardyn's waist, straddling him. "It's ok, you'll be fine."

Bless, the fool thought he was the one in need of comfort? Ardyn risked opening his eyes and shifted his hand from the base of Noct's throat to the back of his head. Noct was trembling, and his skin was clammy and too cool for the desert air. He was, Ardyn realized with disgust, drawing from _his own life-force_ to continue. Ardyn squeezed, hard, and Noct lost concentration. The glow of his hands faded, and his arms began to shake.

"Give me another chance," he whispered, half delirious with stasis-exhaustion and what looked like dehydration. "I felt it change. Please, Ardyn, please don't..." His arms gave way, and Ardyn held him as Noct collapsed, utterly spent. 

"Please," he said. "Let me try again."

Ardyn ran a hand through Noct's hair, giving himself time to think. It's true, he felt... marginally changed. Emptier. Less whole. The rage that boiled under the surface of his cheerful facade was sated, if only temporarily, despite the waves of pain that racked his limbs. If Noctis could do this, then he would be defying all Ardyn had set in place over the past two thousand years. He'd be defying prophecy. The gods.

Ardyn found he rather liked that concept.

"Very well," he said, and Noct nearly wept with relief. Ardyn raised the cloth hood of his beloved car and maneuvered the both of them so that Noct lay on the front seat instead. Ardyn climbed over him and reached into his armiger for a canteen--It was six hundred years old, but provisions never went stale when Lucian magic was involved.

"Open, my sweet," Ardyn murmured, and pressed a thumb to Noct's lower lip. Noct took some time meeting his gaze, and his lips parted slowly.

"I was never... your sweet anything," he said, and Ardyn sighed. He uncapped the canteen and held it to Noct's lips, urging him to swallow. Water ran down the prince's chin and soaked the front of his shirt.

"You could have been," Ardyn conceded. "In a different time. You know, water tastes better when you _drink_ it. A highly unorthodox hypothesis, true, but it's worth testing."

"Asshole," Noct gasped, but there wasn't any vitriol behind it. When Ardyn held the canteen for him again, Noct dutifully swallowed. After a moment, he started to choke and shudder, and Ardyn withdrew. 

Some of the fog was out of Noct's vision, but his magic was still fully drained. He lifted a hand towards Ardyn. Ardyn took it, running his mouth along Noct's blackened nails, and the healer-prince shivered.

"I was like you, once," Ardyn said, speaking around Noct's fingertips. "Young. Naïve. I believed I could heal the ills of this star with a bit of luck and a dash of Astral intervention."

"Don't need the Astrals," Noct whispered. "Just time."

"Ah, a starry-eyed blasphemer. How rare." Ardyn lowered Noct's hand, but didn't let go. "I should have discovered you years ago, dear Noctis."

"Yeah," Noct said. "Probably. Kiss me?"

Ardyn obliged—might as well, if the man insisted on killing himself just to lessen the weight of the Scourge by an ounce—and Noct deepened the kiss. As he did, Ardyn felt a spark of healing magic leap between them, and he drew back with a hiss.

Noct laughed weakly, and the only thing that stopped Ardyn from throttling him then and there was the damage he would do to the upholstery. 

"One more time," Noct said. "And I'll get it right."

Ardyn patted his cheek idly, then heaved the young man onto the passenger's seat. It took some work, but Noct was eventually settled, fast asleep, with his head lolling over the armrest.

"Well," Ardyn said, swallowing down the bitter taste of Noctis' magic. "If we are to suffer, I at least shall suffer in style."

And so Ardyn turned on the ignition, spun the car carefully round the wide, dusty road, and set his sights toward the sea, and the soft, warm beds of Galdin Quay.

*

Let's try again," Noct said, when Ardyn was left keening with pain in one of the plush seats of their hotel room at Galdin Quay. The ocean beyond their balcony was speckled with light from the daemon wards of the venue outside, and two musicians on the beach were strumming guitars for a small crowd of restaurant patrons. Ardyn and Noct's breaths were harsh in their room, setting an erratic rhythm against the simple tune. Ardyn grabbed Noct by the hair, and Noct could feel sharp nails lengthening, digging into his skin.

"Again," he said, as he was shoved into a bookcase a few hours later, landing with a crash that shook travel guides onto the floor. Ardyn had collapsed against a chair, hands shaking, tears running black. 

"Again," he said, taking Ardyn's hand in a too-tight grip when they emerged into the dining area for a breakfast that Ardyn didn't need and Noct couldn't stomach. 

"Again," he said, when Ardyn lay gasping and clear-headed for the first time in nearly two thousand years. Noct had eradicated the Scourge from his central nervous system first, making the slow effort of strengthening tissue and marrow as his magic blazed through Ardyn like a searing fire. Ardyn looked up at him, pale and thin, red hair darkened with sweat, and found he could finally feel the distinct shape of _himself_ amid the maelstrom of the Scourge.

It was the worst pain he'd felt in nearly a millennia.

Noct crawled to the shower and lay under the cool spray for an hour. Ardyn dragged him out in the end, dried him with hands that no longer felt as sure and steady as he knew them to be, and guided him to his feet.

"Who did this to you?" Noct breathed, as Ardyn lay him down in the bed that wasn't sour with sweat. His gaze was feverish and wild, and he shivered under layers of cotton and fleece. Unthinking, Ardyn ran a hand over his forehead, and something tugged loose in his mind. His fingers shone for the span of a breath, bright with the light of a magic denied to him with the consumption of the Scourge, the fulfillment of his destiny.

"That wasn't me," Noct said. His eyes were clear again, focused, and his body no longer shook with an unseasonable chill. "Ardyn, that wasn't—"

"Perhaps," Ardyn said, in a voice that shook in a way it had no right to, "We should... take a short reprieve."

By the time the sun set, Noctis was pacing the room like a disgruntled cat. It was almost adorable, really, watching a young face try to take on centuries of hurt in the space of a few hours. Noct didn't seem to know whether to be furious, mournful, or disbelieving, and was swinging wildly between each one as Ardyn looked on.

"They wouldn't let you _die?"_ he asked, after a moment of wearing a hole into the carpet. Ardyn shrugged a shoulder. "But the Astrals told you to do it, right? Why couldn't they... Why didn't they have a plan?"

"They aren't true gods, you know," Ardyn said, taking pity on the man. "No one said they knew what they were doing."

"They used you," Noct said.

"Granted." Ardyn crossed his legs. It was remarkable how, the angrier Noct became on his behalf, the more nonchalant he felt. A side effect of the healings, perhaps? Or was it simply the pleasure of watching years of pro-Astral conditioning be stripped away at once?

"No one mentioned this at the Citadel," Noct said. "They think being a healer is a curse, a, a bad omen. Is that 'cause of _you,_ or...?"

Ardyn smiled.

"Oh my gods," Noct said. "I don't think I can deal with this, Professor." He grimaced. "Ardyn. Shit, this is weird."

"Go to bed, Noctis," Ardyn drawled. "It will all look _much_ worse in the morning."

"Thanks for that," Noct said. He paused. "Wait. I can heal. Was that why I'm the chosen one? Why I was picked by the crystal? To end up like—"

"Me?" Ardyn asked, cheerily. "No. You were meant for another fate. Go to bed, your highness."

"That a direct order, your _majesty?_ "

"Oh, I haven't been called that in a very long time indeed." Ardyn leaned back in his chair. "I could stand to hear it again."

It took some time for Noct to calm down enough to sleep, but when he did, he pulled Ardyn down with him. Ardyn insisted that he did not, as such, require sleep, but as Noct tugged him down into the soft mattresses, a new, strange sort of fog crept over Ardyn's mind. He panicked, struggling to claw his way out of the haze. But Noct's arm was over his chest, bony fingers at his neck, and Ardyn fell, helplessly, into the first real, dreamless sleep since the collapse of his mortal life.


	5. Chapter 5

Ardyn woke to pain.

This was such an unusual experience in and of itself—Beyond Noct's ever so delightful attempts at healing, Ardyn hadn't felt so much as a chill since the age of thirty-five—that he took a minute simply to examine it, to pick apart each twinge and shiver of flesh. There was a tightening at his skin—warmth? Surely not. Then there was an ache in his hips and lower back, and a gnawing, twisting fire in his abdomen that moved through him as though alive, tearing at his insides with a pain just short of exquisite.

His stomach growled. _Oh._

"Toast in the fridge," Noct mumbled. He had an arm slung over Ardyn's chest, and his fingers ran through the tips of his hair. Ardyn felt another jolt, a tension just over his lungs, and rolled the young man off. 

Then he tried the toast. It was cold, covered in syrup and no longer as crisp as it had been the day before, but Ardyn was used to forcing down elaborate dinners at Niflheim state affairs that felt of ash and paper against a tongue no longer suited for taste.

His senses were still dulled, but the sweetness was almost overwhelming. Ardyn had to take his time, and when he was done, Noct had risen in a tangle of sheets and disheveled hair to watch him.

"You look dreadful," Ardyn said, and Noct grinned. 

"Yeah. I'll order more. It's gonna be a long day."

Ardyn felt a shiver run up his arms, and nodded. "Oh, I expect it will."

The tickling over his skin started to bother him by midday, when Noct was finally ready to start another round of healing. He shed his jacket and rolled back his sleeves, and when Noct touched him, he could feel the pressure of his fingers. 

He wondered if, as he was now, he would be able to tell what Noct tasted like.

By evening, most of Ardyn's bloodstream had been cleansed, and Noct could barely stand. Again, Ardyn touched him, careful and light, and felt the well of power straining through the weakened sludge of the Scourge, bringing light to his hands.

"You're getting better at this," Noct said. He smirked. "For a dinosaur."

"Excuse me?" Ardyn's hand slid down to the side of the younger man's neck.

"Sorry. Old man? Great-great to the hundredth--" Noct cackled as he was shoved back, and hooked his fingers in the lapels of Ardyn's shirt, dragging him along for half a step. Ardyn felt warmth on his palm when he held Noct's hip, and that tension in his chest spiked again.

When Noct surged up to kiss him, Ardyn was disappointed to find he didn't taste much of anything. Well. Maybe next time. He opened his mouth to him, pressed Noct down on the bed, shifted his knee to push his legs open.

He knew how this went, but he'd never felt it so keenly before. Every touch was new, every shift of skin and pulse of blood a heady sensation that threatened to topple Ardyn over the edge of reason. Noct was smiling through it, teasing and too gentle, and when Ardyn pulled at the roots of his hair the cry of pleasure he made was enough. Ardyn gave himself over to it, to him, and forgot, just for a while, the inevitable pain of living.

*

“You and your husband enjoying the honeymoon so far?” Coctura, the one-woman powerhouse behind the Galdin Quay restaurant, smiled as she set about preparing Noct’s order: Two house specials to go, hold the veggies on one, extra rare for the other. Noct, who was leaning on the counter, slipped on his elbow and jarred the counter wall with his knee. 

_Honeymoon?_ Of course Ardyn would use that as a cover. “Uh, yeah,” he said. “The place is great.”

“You should go to the beach at night, if you haven’t already.” Coctura spun a sauce bottle in the air, and a little girl at the other end of the counter applauded. “With the daemons getting all… _you_ know, lately, we’ve had live music every evening.”

“What do you mean, _you know?”_

Coctura gave him a sideways look. “Wow, you guys really are having fun, huh?” Noct was probably sure he was flushing at least seven types of red. “It’s been all over the news. Daemons are getting… weird. There aren’t as many of them, for one thing. And when they try to form, the ground does that churning purpley thing it usually does, but they don’t take a shape. It’s like they’re stuck.” She shrugged. “Dino took me out to see it happen. Says it’s the biggest scoop since someone spotted the prince last week.”

This time, Noct managed not to slip. He thanked Coctura for the meal when it was done and sizzling in his to-go boxes, asked for a newspaper, and carried both of them into his rooms. As he kicked the door open with his foot, he saw Coctura staring at him strangely, reaching for another copy of the paper with her free hand. He wondered if he’d have to send Ardyn out for food from then on. 

Ardyn was lying back on one of the couches, looking like he was trying to catch up on two thousand years of sleep, when Noct quietly shut the door behind him. Noct set the food down on the coffee table and unfolded the newspaper.

The daemon story was front and center. Scientists were going wild trying to explain the sudden drop in daemonic activity, one woman kept insisting that it was tied to the way the days seemed to be getting longer, doomsday activists were popping up all over Insomnia… Noct whistled. 

“Something the matter, Noctis?”

Noct waved a hand in the direction of Ardyn’s voice, and scanned the page. He groaned at the second headline.

“Shit. Ardyn.” He passed the newspaper over, and Ardyn raised both brows.

“Ah, well, this is to be expected,” he said. “If my death would be the death of the Scourge, cleansing it in me is effectively cleansing Eos. Why, are you having second thoughts, dear heart?”

“Look lower,” Noct said. He opened his box—No need to waste food—and unwrapped the silverware. Ardyn took a minute to read, then flipped open the paper and turned a few pages.

“I see.” He set the paper down. “Your Crownsguard friends must have told the King of your disappearance.”

“Kingsglaive,” Noct said. “There’s a difference.” Ardyn rolled his eyes. 

“No matter,” Ardyn told him. “I’ve been maintaining an illusion over myself since we arrived. I can certainly extend the courtesy to you if it worries you so.” He twisted his hand in an odd gesture. Noct glanced down at himself, but he seemed unchanged.

“Is it something other people can see, but not me?” 

Ardyn frowned. “No, that should have worked.” He tried again. Nothing happened. He rose, and Noct could see him concentrating, trying to pull from his reserves of magic. 

“I can’t… It’s _gone,_ ” he said. “The Scourge is too weak.”

“Maybe you have your _own_ magic again,” Noct said, trying not to panic. “Like mine. You healed me last night, right?”

Ardyn sank into the couch, looking stricken. “Perhaps I’m simply… tired. Gods, how do you survive, having to recharge every evening? It’s dreadfully inconvenient.”

“I get by,” Noct said, with his mouth full of steak. Ardyn groaned.

Still, they both decided that, just in case, they would order room service for the foreseeable future. 

Noct was pretty sure that, with the help of an elixir, he could finish up by the end of the evening. The Scourge was reduced to a shadow in Ardyn’s body by mid-afternoon, and the trickiest part was rooting out what was left without getting too distracted. Ardyn lay naked on the bed, the light of Noct’s magic flowing through his skin, and Noct was reminded of their first trip together. _Think of it like cleansing the fountain,_ he thought, when particles of the Scourge eluded him to slip through Ardyn’s bloodstream. He focused, drawing his magic out in a spreading pool, and placed both hands on Ardyn’s chest to remain steady above him. 

A knock on the door nearly threw off his focus. Noct blinked light from his eyes, panic rising as the knocking grew more insistent, and Ardyn narrowed his eyes. A magical wall, crystalline like the ones his father built in their early years of training in defensive spells, crackled as it formed over the door. The sound was muffled through the crystal, and Noct looked down at Ardyn to find the man smiling wryly. 

“It seems you were right about my magic,” he said. The wall of the room shuddered with the force of a blow, and Ardyn gripped Noct’s arms tight. “You’re nearly done,” he whispered. 

“Right.” Noct tried to block out the steady pounding and sank into his magic again. He was chasing down specks, now, forcing them to congregate in one place as his magic drowned them out. Slowly, one by one, the particles of the Scourge burned out of existence. There was only a handful left. So close. So close—

There was a cracking noise, and Noct felt Ardyn’s magic shift within him. He was casting a spell, he knew, but he couldn’t afford to check. He lowered his hands to the last spot where the Scourge dwelled, and turned all of his will onto it. Ardyn let out a sharp cry, and just as the last of the Scourge was cleansed from his body, Noct felt a rush of wind, a sudden chill, hands on his arms. 

“Wait,” he croaked, as the light began to die in his hands, in Ardyn’s blood, in the very air of the room. “Wait, I need to make sure. I need—“ The dizziness that came on the heels of a major working was closing in fast, and Noct could only loll his head back to see the familiar black and silver uniforms of the Kingsglaive. How did they _find_ him? Coctura? Ardyn’s car, still sitting out in the parking lot under a protective awning? What were they—what were they doing with _Ardyn?_

Ardyn was speaking, but the sound came out warped and strange. Noct clutched at an arm—Crowe’s arm, good, he _trusted_ Crowe—and tried to force himself to his feet. 

“Easy, kid,” said Nyx.

“Another day,” Noct said, desperately. “I need another day.”

“Fucking hell,” said one of the Glaives. “What did he _do_ to him?” 

And with that, the tangle of limbs and the chaos of voices overwhelmed him at last, and Noct fell into the dark.


	6. Chapter 6

"Ardyn Izunia." King Regis Lucis Caelum CXIII sat rigid on his throne, light gleaming from the ring in his left hand. The curtains in the throne room were drawn, and the magic that shone about the king in a halo made the shadows of the pillars and balconies stretch impossibly far. "You have been charged with the kidnapping of the prince of Lucis, his highness Noctis Lucis Caelum. How do you plead?"

Ardyn was kneeling on the dais beneath the king, shackled at the wrists and ankles. His smile was foxlike in the shadow of the throne.

"Oh, I haven't pleaded with anyone in ages, your majesty," he said. One of the guards at his side frowned, and he shrugged, chains clinking. "But if it helps, _he_ was the one who walked into _my_ car."

Regis' frown deepened. He shifted in his throne, a slight wince crossing his features as the brace on his right leg struck the marble. "I hope the grave nature of the charges laid against you are not lost on you, chancellor."

"Oh, no." Ardyn's voice echoed in the throne room. "Color me genuinely curious, your majesty. I would quite like to see if you _can _execute me, as I am now."__

__"The man's mad," whispered Clarus Amicitia, a few steps down from the throne. Regis gave him the barest of glances, and clenched his hands._ _

__"Then we have no choice," he said, "but to..."_ _

__He looked up. Ardyn twisted round, looking over his shoulder at the door to the throne room. Muffled shouting came from without, and the door shook as something was flung against it. Regis rose, his Council members summoning their weapons along either side of the throne, as the door was wrenched open with a resounding bang._ _

__Prince Noctis yanked himself out of Nyx Ulric's grasping hands and surveyed the room. The Council members were lowering their weapons; King Regis' face twisted, the rage draining into a pale, drawn misery. Noct's gaze settled on Ardyn, and he summoned a dagger, throwing it onto the floor of the dais. He landed sloppily out of his warp, and had to grab onto Ardyn's shoulder so as not to fall down the steps._ _

__"Sorry, Professor," he said. "Been a while since I’ve had to do that."_ _

__"My hero," Ardyn said dryly, lifting his cuffed hands._ _

__"Son," Regis said, in a soft voice. "You're confused. I understand that the circumstances of your capture may have tricked you into thinking this man an ally—"_ _

__"What? No, he's not an ally." Noctis looked back at the guards approaching him on either side, and a thin, clear wall began to form around the dais. Regis stood—When last Noctis had been in the Citadel, his magic had been simple, almost reserved. He wielded it now with the skill of long practice, and his control was nearly perfect. "He's stubborn and obnoxious and he has the worst taste in..." Ardyn's smile quirked at the edges, and Noct bit the inside of his cheek. "But he's not who you think he is, Dad. He's..."_ _

__"Noctis," Ardyn said, looking concerned for the first time since he was pushed to his knees before the throne. "I really don't think—"_ _

__"He's Ardyn Lucis Caelum," Noctis said. "The king of light. The healer. Like me."_ _

__The silence that followed dragged on, carrying with it only Noctis' labored breathing._ _

__"Noctis," Regis said. "When you are well, we can discuss this. But for now—"_ _

__Noct groaned, and his knife flashed with the light of his magical barrier. Regis stepped forward as a pale line against Noct's arm opened, spilling blood onto the marble at his feet. His dark red hair, streaked with black, had fallen from its ties and lay wild and thin on his shoulders, making him look like an old priest, a mage enacting a terrible summoning._ _

__"Do it, Ardyn," Noct said. He held out his other hand to strengthen his barrier even as the king's magic sought to tear it down. "I know you can."_ _

__"I knew there was a reason I liked you," Ardyn told him. "So needlessly dramatic." And, as Regis limped down the stairs, Clarus at his side, Ardyn lifted his hands to Noct's arm._ _

__Gold light streamed from his hands, closing the wound in Noct's arm, stitching it shut with barely a scar. King Regis stumbled to a halt at the foot of the stair._ _

__"Why do you think I ran, Dad?" Noct asked. He held up his arm, bloody but unmarked, and when he approached, fear flashed in Regis' eyes. Clarus made to move between them, but Noct was quicker, closing the distance to place his hand on his father's shoulder._ _

__Light rose from Noct's fingertips, sinking into King Regis' skin. After a moment, Regis' eyes widened, and he pulled away, flexing his leg and clutching at Clarus._ _

__"Sorry," Noctis said. "It would take longer to fix it completely."_ _

__Regis stared at his son in open shock. On the dais, sitting back on his feet with his shackled hands dangling in his lap, Ardyn Lucis Caelum threw back his head and laughed._ _

__*_ _

__It had been six weeks since Noctis had broken free of his armed guards and charged into the throne room, and not much had changed. Regis still looked at him with a pained, desperate air that made Noct's chest ache, Ardyn was still being questioned (this time by doctors and historians, and Noctis was firmly forbidden to attend), and Noctis couldn't go three steps from his room without running into a helpful member of the Crownsguard, all too willing to show him the way back._ _

__There was no denying that the daemons were gone from Eos. Noct kept the details of his life on the street vague--No need to have half the Glaive, not to mention Ignis and Gladio, arrested for treason. He was slowly, slowly starting to talk to his father again, to breach the gap that had stretched between them ever since the first seeds of doubt had taken root in Noct's mind._ _

__Still..._ _

__He lay awake in his enormous, too-soft bed, and tried to pretend that the expensive hangings were actually the threadbare curtains over the grate of his clinic. He picked at food made by experts in their field and found himself almost getting up to leave his bowl by the door. And every day, he thought of the lines of people in the lower districts of the city, the ones with broken bones, with parasites, with pneumonia and sores and coughs that wouldn't go away. He thought of Crowe's shitty little bathroom, the corners he crashed in at the Glaives' apartments. He thought of Ardyn, reading from a book on magic he probably wrote himself, sitting on Noct's throwaway couch with a cup of tea._ _

__Noct sank into daydreams in the absence of sleep, letting them dull his senses, surrounded by softness and opulence while his fingers itched with unused magic._ _

__Someone knocked on the door. Noctis rolled out of bed and padded, barefoot, across the thick carpet to the doorway. When he pulled the door open, he saw Nyx Ulric standing there, an exhausted, sleep-worn Ardyn at his side._ _

__"You have 'til four am," Nyx whispered. "If you want."_ _

__Noct broke into the first true smile in over a month, and raced for his shoes._ _

__

__*_ _

__

__The grate of the clinic in the Galahd District opened with a clang that echoed along the dark metal pathways. All the lights in the clinic alcove were lit, expensive candles that looked like they could have come from the Citadel itself lining the floor, and a fresh sheet of sanitary paper rolled over the cot in the center. Ardyn leaned back on the couch with a cup of tea, watching as Noctis strode back and forth across the alcove, adjusting charts, setting up new mirrors, checking the water that ran from the tap. Satisfied at last, he tied up the curtains on either side of the alcove and stepped out onto the walkway._ _

__"Hey, Lucis!" he called, and Ardyn laughed, low and indulgent, at the way his hands clenched on the railing. Noct glanced back at him and winked, grinning wide. "We're open!"_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, everyone!


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